


My insides are copper (I'd kill to make them gold)

by herpexia



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Pepper/Tony - Freeform, Tony Stark is lost, Why is my Tony Stark never happy?, Writer doesn't know how to plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1270000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herpexia/pseuds/herpexia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you ever wanted to break everything you care about? Only because it’s truly what matters in your heart, and you do not want to give anything such power in your life?”</p>
<p>“Isn't that exactly what they do?” Tony hears himself ask. “They give you nice things and expect you not to break them.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	My insides are copper (I'd kill to make them gold)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to write anything with a plot, so this one only contains sad attempts to make one. Not a happy story I guess but I can't help turning Tony into a sad individual in my head.
> 
> English is only my second language so please excuse me all errors in that matter :)
> 
> (The title is Fall out Boy lyrics)

The first time Tony Stark meets Loki is at his own tower, because it just so appears that the basics of Loki’s attention seeking are very similar to Tony’s. It’s messy and it’s so very bad and in the end Tony gets thrown out of one of his own windows, which overall is not a very nice feeling. It’s not like he is not used to flying and falling and all that but a freefall without a suit built for flying just tends to knock the air out of a person and yeah, Tony is really not looking forward to repeating that particular life event. And yet later, when he is drunk and kind of lonely, because apparently Pepper was just one of those nice thing he is not meant to have, Tony finds himself staring at the replaced window, tracing his own outline on the smooth surface with his eyes like he could still see himself falling through.

It’s not like he didn’t see the whole thing with Pepper coming, really, on some level he always knew there was no change the thing known as Pepper and Tony would ever survive the thing known as Tony. Somehow it still doesn’t sting any less when one day she finally admits it’s really too much this time and she just can’t. Somehow the fact that, his new shiny make-believe family aside, the only nice, solid thing he has ever really had in his life was gone like everyone else hurt more than any metal shrapnel to the chest or broken glass to the back could ever hurt. 

And he knows he should have been the one to let Pepper go; all the unnecessary pain she has gone through, all the suffering, none of it would have never been without Tony. Pepper loved him, still does, and he knows it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he had single handed fucked up Pepper’s life, and he should have let go before she had to do it. What hurts even more is how he couldn’t be the stronger one, he needed Pepper to tell him he was toxic in her life (okay she never said that but Tony knows that’s the case) and the only change Pepper still had to save herself was to break things on with Tony. It is better this way he tells himself as he numbs his feelings with sweet, sweet alcohol, but the small sound in the back of his head is screaming and he can’t silence it, and for two weeks he can’t even go to their bedroom to sleep. Not theirs, his bedroom, cause it’s not them anymore, it’s just him.

He does get better after Pepper, or that’s what he tells everyone. At some point after New York the shiny make-believe family he does his best to avoid ends up living with him and he swears to god he didn’t adopt a team of superheroes and assassins (including one that was supposed to be dead but at some point wasn’t anymore) but there they are, all under his roof to witness the Post-Pepper Breakdown and suddenly the Stark Tower is the Avengers Tower. And it turns out that two weeks of getting drunk and moping at his workshop isn’t socially acceptable anymore when you have people living with you, some of them who even claim they _care_ about him. So he puts on his big boy pants and leaves the workshop, smiles the I-am-Tony-fuckin-Stark-and-you-can’t-break-me smile he has mastered over the years, acts like a jerk around everyone, and at some point ends up being okay with having someone in the house all the time, especially after a certain someone is not there anymore to keep him from falling apart at times.

He stays sober for varying periods of time, not all the time because he is still who he is, but he’s getting pretty good at functioning like a normal human being and hoping no one knows him well enough to see through his one man’s show of “I’m okay”. He still gets drunk in his workshop or on his private floor more or less weekly, but the others learn to live with him disappearing for days. Steve really tries to talk to him from time to time, but Tony shuts him out, mentally and physically and he locks himself into the workshop or his penthouse and tries to ignore the sting he gets when the national icon frowns and very loudly doesn’t say a word.

Because okay, maybe after everything that went down in New York he hasn’t exactly been sleeping that much even after he made himself migrate back to his (and Pepper’s) floor. So, maybe he hasn’t exactly told anyone about the nightmares and the anxiety that forces the air out of his lungs whenever he is alone in the quiet with his thoughts for long enough, so maybe he occasionally drinks until he passes out just so he can get out of it for a while. Who can blame him, really? 

The second time Tony meet’s Loki it’s still at his own tower and he’s pretty sure there is still some attention seeking involved, but given that he has been drunk for 72 hours at that point, he is really not so sure about the details. All he knows the god of lies is suddenly there in his house (like that’s something that’s supposed to happen all the time) and not in some fancy ass Asgardian prison where he is according to everyone. But Tony being the asshole he has always been just figures it’s either that no one knows he has escaped, he is not actually there but using a clone or whatever he is able to do, or simply just SHIELD not telling anyone a super alien war criminal has escaped, because boy wouldn’t that be an embarrassment. Tony suspects it’s the last option and keeps his mouth shut about it, it’s not like being a self-destructive genius has gotten him killed before.

After a while he just kind of gets used to Loki sometimes simply being in his house. He can’t predict it and can’t get JARVIS to detect his coming until he is actually physically there and has already scared the shit out of Tony, but after a while Tony doesn’t even bother to have any real anger behind his words when he snarls at the god for giving him a heart attack. And, you know, breaking and entering. But at some point he gets used to Loki suddenly just being there, sometimes just sitting quietly on the balcony, or sometimes - when he’s clearly feeling extra-shitty - appearing to the couch right next to Tony.

So, when he slowly starts losing track of how many times Loki visits and the amounts of alcohol he has consumed because of the visits, and totally not because he start’s to be more than okay with the said visits, the new and sometimes only constant in Tony Stark’s life, besides the villain of the week, is suddenly an Asgardian god of mischief, lies and overall chaos. Sometimes he wonders how exactly this all became his life. Most of the time he doesn’t bother anymore. 

\--

“Why’d you do it?” Tony asks one time. He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t specify, they both know what he is talking about even when he doesn’t say it out loud. They sit on the balcony of Tony’s floor and the city is open right under them, with the millions of lights lighting up the night sky. You can still see where they haven’t been able to completely build back everything that Loki and this army or whatever destroyed what seems like a lifetime ago. Tony doesn’t even brace himself for a possible impact, he knows it by now, if Loki wanted him dead there was nothing Tony could do about it, so really, why bother? He can see Loki’s posture change, he stiffens and Tony kind of loves it how he can hit a raw spot, but he doesn’t even get a sideways glance as Loki holds himself together.

“I have very little compassion towards mortals, Stark. All the reason I need lays right there.” His words are ice but Tony hears the god’s voice falter. My god, aren’t those lies.

“You”, Tony says “are so very full of shit. Come on, I asked you a question, don’t give me that crap.”

If only looks could kill.

But they can’t so the god of lies just stares into Tony’s eyes with the same driven glare Tony is giving back to him, and they just stare, without saying a word for a long time until something in Loki’s eyes cracks, just a bit, but his entire posture falters and if Tony didn’t know better he’d say the new something in Loki’s eyes is desperation.

“Maybe I just wanted to see it all burn.”

There is a break and a silence and just when Tony is about to say something Loki takes a deep breath and all but whispers.

“Have you ever wanted to break everything you care about? Only because it’s truly what matters in your heart, and you do not want to give anything such power in your life?”

Loki’s voice is small, lacking the usual threat and show, lacking everything he usually is and Tony is suddenly scared. At some point of this mess that is his life these days he learnt that most of Loki’s threats are only words and it’s been a long time since the god of lies has actually frightened him. But to hear the threat stripped away, to hear him bare, to hear Loki in those words is what scares him right then, and he enjoys it when he finds raw spots on the god and he pokes them until he gets a reaction but this level of honesty is new. Honesty, from the god of lies, who knew? 

The question itself is simple but it feels like a punch to his gut. What else has he ever done but destroyed? Maybe he is an engineer and maybe he has created a bunch of stuff in his life, maybe, maybe, maybe but all that at what cause? He is not ready to open the drawer in his mind labelled _things I have done_ that lays underneath it all, because he is not that drunk, he is never drunk enough to think about the innocent lives his creations have taken and he is not about to start now, but he is pretty sure he has burnt the world a little already.

Somehow he has made sure that he always destroys everything that is dear to him and oh how well he gets Loki’s point, of how he simply cannot allow these things in his life, can’t give something a power like that over his life, not even if he wants to. The thing he had with Pepper is gone because of him and even when he says he doesn’t care about his new family-or-whatever, deep down he knows it’s only a matter of time before he burns it too, because of course he cares. After all, even though having someone care about him at most times is unbearable for him, the same thing is what he ends up craving for nevertheless. 

“Isn’t that exactly what they do?” Tony hears himself ask. “They give you nice things and expect you not to break them.”

Maybe all he wants to burn is himself, watch the flames burn, burn, burn, until he finally feels something and after that he never has to feel a thing again.

“Sometimes it’s easier to set things on fire” Loki says almost absently but it’s almost like he’s read Tony’s mind and isn’t that just ridiculous and brilliant at the same time.

\--

And later, Tony isn’t even surprised when the god of lies pushes him against that certain window. Not hard enough to push his through this time, of which Tony is kind of happy about, but he can still feel how the cool smooth glass presses against his back while Loki, whose body is oddly cold and fever hot at the same time, presses against his front, and Tony knows how easily he could be pushed a bit too hard, but still his body cries for more. He is so high on the adrenaline and apparently it’s danger that turns him on more than anything that he just arches under Loki’s touch as he presses his hand against Tony’s chest, fingers grabbing his collarbone.

His touch is like ice on the bare skin of Tony’s neck and liquid nitrogen in Tony’s veins where it runs through his body sending shivers everywhere and it hurts but he wants more of it, he wants all of it and his body, his mind, his everything cries for more. His heart is like a machine gun in his chest and he knows there is no way Loki doesn’t feel it too, but Tony is already too far gone to care. He knows it’s so very wrong, but in the moment it feels so right he kind of wants to cry and manically laugh at the same time, maybe he has finally pulled himself to pieces, gone crazy beyond repair, these are the ashes of his burnt body, but it feels so good he wants nothing but melt into the hands. The ice is running all over his veins now and somehow it lights him up like fire and he totally does not groan when Loki presses his lips to his neck.

The lips are ice cold as well but they also have the same feverish hot sensation and it feels so good he thinks he is going to pass out right there; after all, he is still very drunk. And he knows technically Loki could very easily break him into pieces, physically, by just adding a little more force push him though the same forsaken window again, but somehow the god’s touches feel almost gentle, like he only wants to break Tony a little, just enough to shatter him into pieces, just like he wants to shatter Loki into pieces just to see what’s inside him. And something that could kill him should not turn Tony on but somehow his vision blurs around the edges as Loki’s bites down on his neck, and then that bastard pushes his thigh between Tony’s legs and he does not scream he does not whimper, and no one can ever prove otherwise.

Tony’s head is finally in the game enough for him to move is head enough to capture Loki’s lips in a crushing kiss that is way too rough but still all kinds of perfect, and Loki just melts into it, puts everything in like he always does in everything he does and licks the insides of Tony’s mouth and suddenly there isn’t nearly enough air in Tony’s lungs. Loki bites down on Tony’s lip, hard enough to draw blood and it should be alarming, maybe even gross but it’s not, and when he can taste his own blood in his mouth and Loki’s tongue at the same time he is so turned on he feels like fainting. He grabs Loki’s wrist and yaks, hard, and Loki surprisingly enough goes with the movement, and lets Tony drag him towards the bedroom – or the couch, hell, Tony is not picky – but being who he is, fights every step of the way, pushing Tony against every vertical surface on the way to lick into his mouth and tear away his clothes, the constant push and pull that has always been there. 

And the fight never stops, not even when the bed dips under them, when he pushes Loki down on his back, Loki’s nails drawing blood where they bite into Tony’s skin, lips finding areas to explore, teeth marking everything on their way as property. They are still fighting for control when they urge each other on, when Loki whispers Tony’s name into his ear and Tony comes so hard his vision goes black, taking Loki over the edge with him. 

By the time Tony catches his breath, Loki is already gone.

\--

Afterwards Tony sits on the balcony, slowly getting drunk like nothing has changed, like everything is how it was before the god of lies teleported straight into his home, before Tony let him be in his bed, in his life. The alcohol burns while it slowly goes down his throat but it’s a familiar burn, one he knows and understands, and if by getting drunk he can ignore how Loki feels like the only thing that keeps his life together at the moment, drunk he will be. Because he doesn’t want to think about how Loki is the only person besides Bruce he can hold a conversation with, without losing the other person immediately, the only one who can keep up with him and challenge him in a single conversation, or how every time Loki goes away Tony feels that little sting somewhere, almost like he hopes that Loki could have stayed just a little bit longer. How fucked up is that?

And he certainly doesn’t think about the scars on his back left by Loki’s nails, and how every time he moves the material of the t-shirt rubs against them and he feels it in his entire body, no, the alcohol helps him ignore that too. Or at least he hopes it will, maybe the next glass or bottle or life. He does is best to ignore the bruises Loki has bitten low on Tony’s hips, covered by his clothing, hidden from the world like they are, but the more he drinks, the more his hand absently presses against them, and the more the sharp pain turns him on. Again, fucked up, and he drinks more to forget he doesn’t even care.

He wants to scream, maybe run to someone and confess the whole thing so they could lock him away for good, Fury would probably love to finally have a legit reason for hating Tony’s guts, but he’s a pussy, he would never do it. He’ll lie, he is in this tangled mess with the god of lies, and lies have always been a part of his life. After all, it’s not the first time he’s perfecting his little show called “I’m fine”. 

I am Tony fuckin Stark and you can’t break me.

So Tony does nothing, tells no one, just keeps taking sips from his bottle, maybe a bit more often than he has in a while, after he got over the whole Pepper fiasco, but it’s not like anyone would notice anyway. Loki might notice, might even care, but he doesn’t say a word, and that’s also a chain of thought he refuses to continue. He doesn’t need Loki to care about him, he can’t afford care. When Tony Stark cares about something, _someone_ , he fucks it up, it’s a patter and Loki turning into another Pepper? Something he also can’t afford. 

And when little by little Loki manages to work his way into Tony’s life even more, like when he falls asleep on Tony’s bed like he belongs there, Tony closes his eyes and tells himself he doesn’t care, over and over again, until he believes it.

\--

“I could so easily break it, break you, Stark” Loki says to him once, as he presses his palm flat against the blue light on Tony’s chest. Tony breathes in.

Maybe I want to be broken by you, he thinks. 

Tony Stark always breaks the things he holds dear.

\--

_They give you nice things. And expect you not to break them._


End file.
